Betsy McCaughey was the Lieutenant Governor of New York but in my book is one of the most important people in America. She has saved America's health care once, and may do it again. She wrote an article in The New Republic, which in the early nineties was required reading for the inside-the-beltway types, on Hillarycare. Tom Wolfe said "that one article shot down the entire blimp, and Betsey McCaughey became a 35-year-old Cinderella."

And it doesn't hurt that she's a babe either. Hey! I read of a woman who, when sleepless, would fantasize about where Barack and Michelle were sleeping, and another who would dream of what color her children with Obama would be, and so I can call a hottie a hottie. It's not as though I, of all people, am stalking her.

Like the U. S. Cavalry, Betsy comes to the rescue again. She writes in The New York Post about Obamacare and the little monsters who are out to do it--and do you in. And I mean that literally.

One of His O'liness's top health advisors is Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel, the most frightening person on the planet. A thousand Osama bin Ladens don't have the ability to cause the misery of one family of Emanuels. Dr. Zeke wrote in Health Affairs in the February 27, 2008 edition:

Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality are merely 'lipstick' cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change.

"True change?" What can he mean?

He means that doctors should no longer consider their patients' lives first but consider society's needs first. "Social justice," which is anything but and is a euphemism for atom-level control over people. The White House is already wanting us to report fellow citizens for Thoughtcrime.

One of the rights which we hold most dear is our right to determine our own health, but under the proposals of Dr. Zeke, that right will be taken away and given to government bureaucrats. Unelected, unaccountable government bureaucrats. The only way to control the cost of health care is rationing--either by waiting times for services, like Canada or Britain or any other socialized medicine, or by denial of service, which is being proposed here, or by cost, and the best cost control is making people think about the cost. Charles Krauthammer has an excellent column (which is no surprise) in which he proposes reforms which give people more control over their own health. This is the only sane way to do anything--if people are not in control, then they are slaves. The very definition of slavery is not having agency over your own actions. I have a funny feeling that Dr. Zeke and his happy little people are very comfortable with Slavery Mark II.

Dr. Zeke will have none of people being in charge of their health. It detracts too much from the power of government, and it's everything for the state, and nothing outside the state. Sorry. I'm quoting Mussolini. Dr. Zeke gives us

Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years.

So it's just fine not to operate to fix that broken hip on Grandma because she's old and one of those people "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens."

Participating citizens? Is that citizen workers? Proles? People who will take marching orders, and cuffs and blows, from left-wing thugs? Like Dr. Zeke.

In other words, if you cannot work for the collective, then screw you. Your time is up.

And he means it too: another class of people who don't need health care: "An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia." Well, if they're off their nut, they can't work in those productive jobs that the ideological thugs want us to do.

This is medicine with the eye of a bean-counter, not a doctor. In some European countries, if you're over 65, you don't get heart surgery. Why? You're not a productive citizen and are therefore a burden. Perhaps not to your family but you are to the government, which has clasped you to its bosom with a death grip. A literal death grip.

Dr. Zeke himself has said that improvements in efficiencies are mere lipstick--I'd say birdlime--and it's the rationing which will make the difference.

A lot of the bills being put through Congress will be paid for by a $500-billion-plus cut in Medicare over the next ten years. Let's see. That sounds, again, like Granddad being put on boot hill when he gets sick.

The IRS decides how much of your money you get to keep. Under Obamacare IRS-like bureaucrats will decide how much life you get to keep. Do you have elderly friends? Take them to dinner. It might be the last one, if Obamacare passes. After all, they're expendable. In terms of social justice. Because they're not "participating citizens" any more. They can't pull the plow, hoe that row, and therefore money spent on their medicine is not justified, from a cost/benefit analysis, which is appropriate to a bean-counter, or to a totalitarian.

Bullshit.